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STATUS ON EPISODIC GAMES?
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Sailerius
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CloseI remember this being discussed as a feature for the current version of RMN but it didn't quite pan out. I was wondering what's on the roadmap for supporting episodic game releases and, if nothing, what's the suggested way of handling episodic profiles? Some games, like The Way, have each episode as their own game profile, and others, like Master of the Wind, have them all on one profile.
The problem is, do you mark the game as completed when one episode is out? Or all of them? It makes more sense to only mark it as completed when the whole game is done, but then it's hard to concisely convey that there is finalized playable content out as opposed to just a demo.
Although it's not the most elegant solution, a simple fix might be to add another status aside from just in development/completed to represent an episodic title with at least one episode out, but the whole game isn't complete.
Maybe a better solution would be to add a checkbox for an episodic game and add a field for episodes released and total episodes. Then, in the games list, next to the title, it would say "2/5 episodes completed."
The problem is, do you mark the game as completed when one episode is out? Or all of them? It makes more sense to only mark it as completed when the whole game is done, but then it's hard to concisely convey that there is finalized playable content out as opposed to just a demo.
Although it's not the most elegant solution, a simple fix might be to add another status aside from just in development/completed to represent an episodic title with at least one episode out, but the whole game isn't complete.
Maybe a better solution would be to add a checkbox for an episodic game and add a field for episodes released and total episodes. Then, in the games list, next to the title, it would say "2/5 episodes completed."
Yeah, this was one of (many) things that didn't make the cut for RMNv4.3, but it is on my radar. Now, I haven't come up with any elegant solutions, but I was going to add in another status called "Episode Complete" or some such, and this would indicate that the game has completed 1 (or more) episodes, but the entire series/game is not completed yet.
I also like the idea of a couple of extra fields for 2/5 episodes completed.
How would YOU like them to work?
I also like the idea of a couple of extra fields for 2/5 episodes completed.
How would YOU like them to work?
I have never done any sort of episodic game so I'm sure my thoughts are super relevant to the topic on hand!
Personally I'd like to see episodic games contained in one game profile for the sake of top level organization. Searching "Grimace's Quest: Hamburglar's Rampage" will only return the one game no matter how many episodes it is and likewise only has one entry when looking for games on the games list. I like the idea of saying what episode is complete and maybe it could add the status of the next episode so you'd get "Grimace's Quest: Hamburglar's Rampage Episode 2 Complete Episode 3 Hiatus" for example. The logic for that could just be a numeric input field w/ a checkbox on a game profile (Episodic? Lastest Episode: X) and derive the episode complete from that number and if a download is available and the next episode status based on the current production state of the game profile. I don't think there'd have to be much more work from the dev's end for episodic games to work. Downloads and such could just be managed by the dev and they can just submit a new download for each episode of the game as/if needed.
Reviews might be a new bag of fish. If somebody reviews GQ:HR Episode 1 then how should that score still apply when Episode 2 and 3 come out? I think reviews would need a way to show what episode the review is for which can just be pulled from the game profile automatically when the user submits a review and it is appended to the review name when users view it. The review score could be weighted less against other reviews or just left as is. Makerscore is clearly that episodic games don't get the full makerscore completed games do until they get all the episodes done and submitted.
Personally I don't see it being a big change to better accommodate episodic games but I'd like to hear more from Sail and other episodic game developers to better know what they need from game profiles.
Personally I'd like to see episodic games contained in one game profile for the sake of top level organization. Searching "Grimace's Quest: Hamburglar's Rampage" will only return the one game no matter how many episodes it is and likewise only has one entry when looking for games on the games list. I like the idea of saying what episode is complete and maybe it could add the status of the next episode so you'd get "Grimace's Quest: Hamburglar's Rampage Episode 2 Complete Episode 3 Hiatus" for example. The logic for that could just be a numeric input field w/ a checkbox on a game profile (Episodic? Lastest Episode: X) and derive the episode complete from that number and if a download is available and the next episode status based on the current production state of the game profile. I don't think there'd have to be much more work from the dev's end for episodic games to work. Downloads and such could just be managed by the dev and they can just submit a new download for each episode of the game as/if needed.
Reviews might be a new bag of fish. If somebody reviews GQ:HR Episode 1 then how should that score still apply when Episode 2 and 3 come out? I think reviews would need a way to show what episode the review is for which can just be pulled from the game profile automatically when the user submits a review and it is appended to the review name when users view it. The review score could be weighted less against other reviews or just left as is. Makerscore is clearly that episodic games don't get the full makerscore completed games do until they get all the episodes done and submitted.
Personally I don't see it being a big change to better accommodate episodic games but I'd like to hear more from Sail and other episodic game developers to better know what they need from game profiles.
author=kentona
Yeah, this was one of (many) things that didn't make the cut for RMNv4.3, but it is on my radar. Now, I haven't come up with any elegant solutions, but I was going to add in another status called "Episode Complete" or some such, and this would indicate that the game has completed 1 (or more) episodes, but the entire series/game is not completed yet.
I also like the idea of a couple of extra fields for 2/5 episodes completed.
How would YOU like them to work?
I think that's probably the ideal way to handle it. The big concern I have is, as GRS just mentioned, how reviews should be handled. I'll use Vacant Sky as an example. Act III was released nearly two years after Act I and as such the production values and quality of the gameplay had increased significantly since the first episode, yet the reviews which were never updated past Act I sat there and continued to affect the score (as well as had no obvious indicator that they only covered the first episode).
Although, this problem is one that affects more than just episodic games. Games which are reviewed in the alpha, beta, or demo stage have those old reviews continue to sit around when a full version is released, even if that full version might have fixed all the bugs and issues that it was judged for before.
The easiest solution would be to add a new field to reviews to indicate what was reviewed (so the reviewer can type in "Episode 1" or "11/25/2012 Beta", or maybe there's a dropdown selector which lets you select an entry from the downloads list), but that doesn't address the issue of what to do with review average. Maybe only the download flagged 'main download' is factored into the review average.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Since the "old reviews" issue isn't specific to episodic games, I don't think it necessarily has to be addressed at the same time.
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